


Dead As In Alive

by JadeLoverXD



Series: Random stories of fandoms [19]
Category: Fear the Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Fantastic Grade-A racism that's laughable if you've lived through it all, If you're being forced to canabalize on very dead people don't this isn't Skyrim, Main Character is black, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Abuse, Post-Apocalypse, Slow Burn, Troy lives and Madision doesn't know it, Uh...
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:08:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26858716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JadeLoverXD/pseuds/JadeLoverXD
Summary: Walking, Walking,Darlin' I'm yet found,Searching, Waiting,For an end that sets me near...Life in the After is worse, maybe better than before the whole outbreak.But the one thing you can get tired of is isolation.Quiet, empty, yet filled with dead.Fighting for your life.Surviving.
Relationships: Troy Otto/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Random stories of fandoms [19]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1530671
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	1. Chapter 1

_This is how it is now._

Scorched hands grapple for her, pulling at the sleeve of her arm as she weaves through the horde. Her machete is covered in blood, all of her is covered in black blood, the only thing she could do was smear more of the blood into her face as a droplet trails down her eyebrow. She shoves another pair of hands away from her, and then another, and then another, until her breathing is erratic, and hacks and slashes blindly, uncaring of what lands on her. She hears screaming, she thinks it's someone else in the mob with her, or maybe it's her, she doesn't know. The only thing she can think is _fight, fight, fight_ as the adrenaline pumps through her veins.

She isn't aware of how much time goes by. She doesn't bother to pause to look up at the sky, the only thing she can see is red and death. Her arms feel sore from decapitating and ending the dead, and her blade has almost become dull. But she keeps going. But by then, her throat feels dry, and tongue rough like sandpaper, her body gets heavier...

She makes the mistake of faltering when one of them grabs for her. 

A cry escapes her, she tries to grapple, but it's too late. She's pinned to the ground, forearm holding back the gnashing of teeth and foul odor above her. Milky eyes stare lifelessly into her own, and for a moment, she wants to stop struggling. Wishes she could. But a promise was made, and she had to keep it.

Hiking her legs up underneath the dead on top of her, she uses her lower half to shove it off of her, reaching for the gore-covered blade at her side and brings it down through the socket, twisting it for good measure.

Silence. Save for the panting to get air into her lungs.

It surrounds her, relieving and confusing at the same time. Her eyes lift, blinking against the brightness of the sun as it hung above her. The wind blew on her face, cool autumn air drying the blood on her. Her ears rang, still hearing the hissing and groaning of the dead in her ears.

She wanted to cry.

Bodies surrounded her like an unkempt ritual circle as she gazes around the area. Rotten corpses, burnt and freshly turned, slashed to pieces and torn asunder. She did this. And she couldn't remember how it came to be like this. She doesn't remember if anyone was with her before all of this. And if she was, they'd be long dead now.

 _Relief. Exhaustion._ So exhausted.

Her body was dragging her down, and she felt so tired. The first three steps, didn't do much for her as she collapsed into the ground. She wasn't sure if the ground underneath her was concrete or grass, or if the figures running towards her was just her hallucinating. She didn't care though. She wanted to rest. Her heavy eyelids close against her will, and then she feels her conciousness fade away, as if she was shoved by an invisible force into the corners of her mind.


	2. Chapter 2

"She did all of this?" Jax swears, looking at the bloodied girl on the ground and the carnage surrounding, "My God."

"Check and see if she's bitten before you pick her up." EIin warns, wide eyes taking in all the carnage around them. She kneels next to her, taking a clump of flesh out of the matted hair and tossing it away. "Arms, legs, neck, back, torso."

They were rushing to get to her when they'd saw her, in the middle of the dead that swarmed around her. They heard her cry of rage for what must have been forever. When they had managed to pick off the straggling infected, the herd thinned, and their group had managed to take out the rest with no casualties. 

"Is she bit?" Torin jogs up to them eyes darting to the girl on the ground, "Because if she is then this is seriously a waste of time."

"No. She's fine, amazingly." Jax says with a shake of his head, fingers going up to tell for her pulse, "She must have passed out due to exhaustion and deprivation. I can see her ribs." 

"Are we taking her back?" Asked Elin. She looks between the two, "Can't leave her out here."

Torin sighs, "Now's the time we start asking 'what if'. What if she turns out to be a serial killer? A murder?"

"I will just stop you right there when I say, it looked like she was fighting for her life." Jax checks his wrist, crouching down to scoop her up in his arms, "We need to get back before the sun sets. Get the others and tell them we're clear."

* * *

She floats in and out of consciousness only for a few seconds. The first time she wakes, she's being carried by someone she didn't recognise, and as soon as she tries to move her limbs, she's again tossed back into that corner, a heavy darkness cocooning around her. 

The second time, she actually moves a limb, and ends up smacking someone in the face, her own hand flaring in pain. Her own eyes meet familiar sky blues— _I know you_ —before the darkness tugs harder into her.

Vaguely she thinks she hears them curse.

And the third time, she actually stays awake. 

Her eyes easily adjust to the dim room, the only light visible was the light peeking through the drawn curtains. Slowly, she moves her head to the right of her, and barely, she's able to make out the silhouette in the corner. "H-help." She rasps as loud as she can, her throat sore and dry. 

The figure in the chair jolts, a loud sigh escaping them as their head turns towards her and reaches for something next to them. Bright light stings her eyes, hissing, she squints against the harsh glare, head pounding with a headache.

"Holy..." They breathe, just as something cold is pushed to her lips,

"Drink." Her eyes adjust to the room, taking in the bare cream colored walls and heavy dark curtains of the room. Only a few pieces of furniture sat in the corner across from her. 

Two light taps land on her shoulder, startling her from her examining, "Hey, you there?" The woman continues to hold the cup up to her lips, eyes wide as she looks over her, "You've been out for three weeks now. Might as well take a sip." She doesn't move her hand until her own two take a hold of the cup, and then takes a small sip, then three gulps and she'd finished the cup.

"'M not sure if I could give you more after you've been without food or water for... I don't know how long, but I'll call for someone to bring you something." The woman says and opens the door next to the foot of the bed. She can hear muffled voices on the other side of the room of she focused through the blood rushing in her ears, but gave up as she moved her body in the slightest. A muffled groan builds in her throat, pain exploding in her arms and stomach until with a heaving gasp, she makes herself comfortable. 

_How did I get here?_

She tries thinking past that barrier in her mind, trying to go back and see how she ended up in pain, in this all-too-comfortable bed.

The bed was... Nice. Afterall, life in the After wasn't easy. Making beds out of logs and the backseats of cars wasn't nice, but it gave you a place to sleep, at least. _Not like the unhinged outposts we've been to._

Confused, she throws out everything she can, just to figure out the thought from when it emerged, but she's lost it as soon as she heard it, mind struggling to keep up.

The door opens again, and the same woman that was next to her appears with a middle aged man.

"Hello Exterminator." He says in greeting, the woman setting the tray in her hands over her lap.

"Torin!" The woman snaps, glaring at him while lifting the corner of the duvet at her feet and undoing something. She hadn't even felt the cuff on her ankle due to the pain. "Check that bandage on her arm and ribs after she eats?"

"Yeah, sure." The man next to her—Torin—gives her a smile of encouragement as she uses her arms to try to sit up straight, helping when she almost collapses against the pillows with a steady hand at her back, using his other hand to prop some pillows up behind her.

"I'm Mishka." The woman says after she took a hesitant bite of the sandwich (but not before sniffing it. She'd learned that lesson a long time ago). Mishka pauses, before she continues, "My friend here and a few others found you unconscious and brought you here." Torin nods in agreement, raising an eyebrow at her action.

"I'm Torin. I'm the one that fixed your boo-boos," he adds, with a small smile in Mishka's direction, "And I must say, Mish. Stealing my sandwich and giving it to the Exterminator was not What I expected you to do."

"It was already made." She assures her confused glance with a wave of her hand, "And he was eating the last of the pickles of the season. So I say that's fair."

"Wha— We have cucumbers in storage that you can pickle!"

"Perdita." Her throat works, voice sounding hoarse and swallows the last of the sandwich she'd practically inhaled. The two turn their attention to her, their conversation completely forgotten. "Perdita Linsly."


	3. Chapter 3

"So you don't remember going gladiator style on that herd?" Torin asks her, examining the scabbed cut on Perdita's arm. "Something must have happened to you before... that. We're you with anyone else?"

"I've been with people, lost people, found people. Now... I'm not so sure." She scratches her head with her free hand, "I can remember flashes though. Like... I can see hands, but they aren't this mottled grey color. They were controlled."

"And that's all you can remember?" Maybe she didn't want to tell him about the continuous nightmares of crooked, chipped teeth knawing on her body. Of being dragged into an endless pit by the dead. 

"So far." 

Torin hums to himself, not replying any further. He throws the bandage away and stands up from his place next to her, "You're free to go."

"Thank you, Torin."

He waves his hand, as if to bat away her gratitude, "Bah! Anything for the _Exterminator."_

Perdita almost rolls her eyes then. She'd been here at the 'Castle' for a full week now, barely even saw the entire mansion with its four wings on the inside. The only few places she visited was the kitchens, the gardens, her room and the medical center. Here, surprisingly, there was no leader, everyone shared ideas and discussed plans. It felt... strange. Not even the warning bells had been ringing.

Mishka had been pressuring her to meet everyone in the North wing, Perdita shaking her head and simply saying no after the fact. It's not that she didn't like meeting new people as much as she did before, somehow, She didn't feel stable enough. Like the wrong thing could possibly trigger something within her—

She smacks into someone, or something, without looking. The person in front of her gently grasps her forearms, steadying her until she regained her balance. "Woah there, busy daydreaming or—? " Their eyes meet, and Perdita's hackles raise as the memories flood back. "Oh crap."

* * *

_The air smelled. Like death and rot and sweat._

_Her nose stung from the must and foul odors eminating from the people in the room._

_Beside her, her brother stirred, sweat running down his forehead in rivulets. The fever was taking him much sooner than she expected. She figured that if she came here, he'd be saved. But stupidly, she thought, her brother was going to die here, and it would be her fault._

_She wipes away the sweat with her sleeve, barely glancing at the number written on her hand, and uncaring if the moisture was seeping into her clothes. She'd worry about that when she could, but now, she needed to escape, and fast._

_She looks around the storage room, glaring at the armed man standing by the door and observing everyone and everything else. Only a few boxes and bottles of cleaner sat on the shelves, but nothing she could make into a weapon. Perdita supposed she could kick out one of the weaker shelf legs and bend it until she could get it free, but it would take too long and she's likely be dead._

_A peal of laughter sounds from behind the second door, covered behind grunts. A shot rings out, startling everyone in the room, and the grunts are silent, save for the whimpering of a woman in front of her._

_The door then opens, and the short blond man points to her and her brother and a few more people, including the whimpering woman in front of her._

_"C'mon let's go, line them up and get one ready."_

_Hands haul her and her brother up onto their feet, a grown of pain escaping his mouth as she's roughly handled. She bites her tongue, not wanting to make things worse, but definitely wanting to make things worse._

_Just for the so called 'military's sake._

_They lead them to another room, this one filled with showers and—_   
_Oh._

_"Chase!" The woman shrieks, recognising the dead man hanging by his wrists. She's brought up to his body, zip ties being attatched to the chains that held him in place. "No._ No! Por favor!" _Her panicked eyes dart over to them against the wall, begging them to help. Her brother murmurs her name, burying his face into her arm to hide. She wouldn't look away though. She looked away when their parents died a miserable death without even so much as a goodbye, the least she could do is let the woman know she isn't alone._

_"Put some tape over her mouth." The blond man orders and scribbles down something on the clipboard, then takes a knife from one of the other men, "Hate it when they beg." He mutters, glancing at a few of them sitting down behind him._

_"I say an hour before she turns." One of them says._

_"Forty-two minutes." Another grins and takes out a watch from his pocket, "Ready?"_

* * *

_"He died because of you!"_

Troy doesn't feel remorse. He did once when Jake had died, but after that, after Madison had almost ended him with a hammer, or at least thought she did, he found just a tiny scrap of it still there.

The woman in front of him grips his collar with both hands, shoving him against the wall.

And he does nothing.

Did he deserve to die after all the lives he'd taken? _Absolutely._

So any hint of death that came near him, he'd gladly do nothing to try to stop it. But Death, it seemed, kept away from him, no matter how bad he wanted to die. Once, maybe even twice, he thought of ending his life himself, but he was too much of a coward.

"I lost everything because of you!" She snarls. He remembered when Jax and the others had brought her in that night, when she'd been covered in blood and gore. A true sign that she had been surviving the hardest out of anyone here.

His throat works, scrounging up something to say, "I'm—I'm sorry." He wasn't sure if he meant it, even the words felt foreign on his tongue.

"No." Her head shakes slightly, face twisting into pure hatred—a look he had grown accustomed to, "People like you aren't sorry."

Troy nods his head, hands remaining slack at his sides as she shoves away from him, "I should kill you."

"You should." He agrees, "No one would know. There aren't many people in this wing." 

"But I'm not going to be the one to do it. You already have that look like things have already been eating at you from the inside out." She spat venomously. Troy flinches, her words hitting their mark and turns his gaze to the floor.

"My brother died because I was doing— _did_ —something I thought was right." _And the entire ranch fell with Jake,_ he doesn't add. He told Madison that he'd do it again, gladly. All to protect what rightfully belonged to his family. 

A humorless laugh escapes her, "And did you feel anything?"

Bringing his gaze up to meet hers, he nods his head, the scar on his temple throbbing a bit. "Everything I didn't."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "If I could, if stop splitting my time in making short snippets of 16 different fandom and finishing my other projects..." — Said I, just as I create another project that won't be finished in forever.


	4. Chapter 4

_"I should have swallowed instead of having you."_ The words stung, but he cared for her anyways. Even when she spat at him, called him names, insulted him, he still cared. His father had done worse. Much worse.

The bowl slid across the table towards her wrinkled frail hands, "Eat your food Ma."

"Don't you tell me what to fucking do you waste of flesh." Her words were always tipped with a slurred edge, and no matter how hard he'd try to hide all the alcohol in the house, even the medical alcohol, she'd still end up drunk somehow.

"You're drunk again, Ma." He places the glass of water down next to it and sighs heavilly, "Where do you keep getting the stuff?"

"Where's Jeremiah?" She asks over his question with a roll of her eyes.

"Out selling more buckets." Neither his father or Jake had not once shown up to help take care of his mother alongside him. While she wasn't Jake's biological mother, Troy didn't understand why he chose not to help. But his father... sometimes the old man did more harm than good to the both of them—to Troy the most.

His mother didn't seem to care either. As the years passed, the more miserable she became, and the more she reached for the bottle.

"Damnit." His mother mutters, a hand going to her forehead.

"What?"

"'M gettin' sober and I need my damn cigarettes."

"Ma, they're going to kill you." He gestures to the bowl and the tea,

"Food's getting cold."

"I don't want to eat, goddamnit! Where did you put my cigs?" The bowl is thrown against the wall next to his head, barely missing him by a few inches. Troy watches the liquid trail down the wall to the trim, and to the shares of the porcelain bowl.

"Why do you hate me?" He asks her, crouching down to pick up the shards, "I've been hated for as long as I can remember. And I've always wondered why."

She goes quiet, then. Her own identical eyes shine with a different light when he looks up, one much younger and caring than the person he knows now. For a moment, she looked like his mother...

 _"True is change, falsehood is a monstrosity..."_ Her eyes cloud over, and she sags in her seat, almost in defeat. "Just leave me alone, Troy."  
It took him seven minutes to clean up the mess along the wall, trim and floor. By that time, his mother was ready to go back to sleep, and waited patiently for him to finish—surprisingly, without a complaint.

"I met your father at a supermarket." She tells him when he makes to leave out of the dining room, "I was looking for some onions before I bumped into him. He had the stupidest look on his face when he saw me. Covered in dirt and looked like he could drop dead at any second."

A snort escapes her as he takes a seat in the chair next to her. "I thought he was... a nice man at the time, but it's not after you get married... you start to see their true colors...  


"When we got married and had you, I realized that this was one of the biggest mistakes I'd ever made. Bringing you into this world, marrying him. All of it. I was just too stupid to see that he was a drunkard that abused his family." She turns to him, gaze clouded again, "Jeremiah left me on my own when I gotten pregnant, said that I didn't need him for the rest of the way, rarely came to check on me when I gotten my first few contractions. When I had you, it was one of the few moments in my life that made me scared and happy at the same time. You were this little bundle in my arms, and... I knew you wouldn't be right in the head as you got older.

A tear falls down her cheek, "My only options were to give you up for adoption, or let you at least grow up saying you had a real family. So I chose the latter, and watched you—watched Jeremiah—ruin you. Break you. Because I'm a terrible mother and I deserve to die for what I've done. What I haven't done to save my child..."

"So why didn't you?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the third episode of season 3? "Teotwaki" or however u spelled it, I decided to do something when Jeremiah said that Troy was taking care of his mother and he was out selling buckets.


End file.
